Taste & Smell: Crash Course A&P

Hank resists the urge to devour a slice of pizza so that he can walk you through the way we experience our major special senses. It all boils down to one thing: sensory cells translating chemical, electromagnetic, and mechanical stimuli into action potentials that our nervous system can make sense of. Today we're focusing on smell (olfaction) and taste (gustation), which are chemical senses that call on chemoreceptors. As usual, we'll begin with a quick look at how these things can go wrong.

Table of Contents
Anatomy and Physiology of Smell 2:26
The Olfactory Sensory Neurons 3:01
Receptors - Glomerulus - Mitral Cells - Brain 3:47
Taste Receptor Epithelial Cells 7:30
Receptors Trigger Action Potentials to Four Different Cranial Nerves 8:26